Like every college coach, Mark Dantonio knows the stress of his job. As head coach at Michigan State, Dantonio has felt the pressures of winning in a big conference. His Spartans finished 11-1 this season and won a share of the Big Ten Conference title. But after suffering a mild heart attack on Sept. 18, just hours after his team used a fake field goal to beat Notre Dame, 34-31 in overtime, the 54-year-old coach was forced to deal with the stresses associated with the job. "You need to take care of your family and your health and you need to take time for yourself .....

Winter Park should have one of the area's best backfields this fall with RBs Malik Foy and Tyshaun Ingram. Foy, a rising junior, rushed for 658 yards and seven touchdowns in five games before tearing the ACL in his right knee, forcing him to miss the second half of the season. Ingram, also a rising junior, is an Evans transfer. He rushed for nearly 500 yards last season. "[Foy] was on pace for a thousand yards last year," coach Tim Shifflet said. "Ingram is a heck of a kid and has a lot of speed.

Ty Braswell was looking forward to the summer of 1994 for one of the last times when he could show college coaches his command of tennis.But those plans were somewhat stymied when he was denied access to two of the top junior national events of the summer: the clay court nationals and hardcourt nationals.He was unable to play in those events because he hadn't played in the State Closed Tournament. A requirement for entering national junior events is an appearance in the State Closed.Braswell, who will be a senior at Eustis High School this fall, thought he had qualified for the State Closed but a denial of an injury waiver cost him one of the four required designated events.

Three years ago, Jalen Merrick had a dream, and if that dream had come true, college coaches like Mike Krzyzewski or Rick Pitino or Billy Donovan might be swinging by New Smyrna Beach High to check him out as a top recruit. That dream is gone, but this is not a tale of woe. Merrick is indeed a top recruit, but instead of meeting basketball coaching kings like Coach K and Pitino, Merrick is far more likely to see Nick Saban, Urban Meyer, Will Muschamp or George O'Leary.

What's the over-under on a college football player's making a valid point while discussing a serious topic?One, maybe?Well, Florida State cornerback Terrell Buckley made several this week on underclassmen's leaving school before completing their campus eligibility for multiple-comma contracts in the NFL.''I think the pro coaches are right, and all the college coaches want to do is use the same players to get their own money,'' said Buckley, a junior who...

The Sentinel's Andrea Adelson and Matt Murschel face off on whether college football coaches should Twitter. Yes: Tweets a good way to reach recruits Pete Carroll does it. Lane Kiffin does it, too. Sometimes Charlie Weis does it several times a day. I'm talking about Twittering -- this generation's version of the CB radio. And unlike most fads like Uggs and High School Musical, Twitter appears to be here to stay. So why not embrace all of its 140-character greatness? College coaches have embraced the world of Twitter like the spread offense.

Longtime NBA people rarely miss an opportunity to point out the lack of success that high-profile college coaches have had when making the jump into professional basketball. What they often don't mention is why those coaches have failed so badly. It's the talent. It's the teams. In the past 15 years, good coaches such as Rick Pitino, P.J. Carlesimo, John Calipari, Tim Floyd, Lon Kruger and Mike Montgomery all came as very successful college coaches, only to struggle -- often badly -- in the NBA. Although it's easy to say they failed to adapt, to the game, to the players, to the grind of a marathon season, it's also not usually true.

Rain or shine, blurry eyes or not, you can usually catch Jim McKenzie watching the five television monitors in his garage workroom, his faithful sidekick, Echo, there with him.No, he's not watching the Magic or the NFL or major league baseball. McKenzie is monitoring the progress of game tapes he has shot or requested of Florida's finest football players.He's quietly putting together tapes for college coaches to watch.McKenzie, a former coach, has become the eyes for hundreds of high school football players.

The NCAA denied a request Wednesday to grant instant certification to the Orlando All-Star Classic, preventing eight college coaches from participating. The coaches pulled out on Tuesday after complaints were registered by the NCAA. The coaches had hoped the NCAA would reverse its opinion, but the organization declined.NCAA rules prohibit college coaches from participating in postseason tournaments that are not certified. Pat Williams, general manager of the Orlando Magic, who are promoting the Classic, said the Classic should have full certification this summer.

NEW ORLEANS -- If Bob Stoops and Nick Saban didn't know any better before, they certainly do now. Steve Spurrier's overall NFL experience may have been a monumental failure, but he had at least one significant impact on the pro game: He made the nation's other big-time college coaches realize that pro football is not always utopia. Sometimes, in fact, it might as well be Ethiopia. "Steve Spurrier was the most dominant coach in the Southeastern Conference," LSU's Saban said Saturday as his team prepared for tonight's Sugar Bowl matchup with Oklahoma.

When people hear about Jacques Patrick, with his 50 Football Bowl Subdivision scholarship offers, it all sounds glamorous. He leads the life of a high school football star. College football fans want him to play for their school. They all laud him with praise on Facebook; shower him with love on Twitter. By whatever means they can find, they reach out. If they get his phone number, they text. Quez, as his friends call him, has changed his cell number at least three times since I've known him. His life as a hot-shot college football prospect has been fun, he says, to an extent, but those days are becoming more of a distant memory.

For blue-chip junior running back Jacques Patrick , National Signing Day is still 364 days away. Yet it was Patrick, not his senior teammates, who had to get to school before his first class at Timber Creek several times in January so major-college recruiters could say hello. Patrick, a 6-foot-2, 230-pound All-America running back, has enjoyed the recruiting process. Getting to school early, not so much. "I don't have a first-period class, but I still had to wake up early and come up here when a coach was coming," Patrick said.

Deion Sanders. The man who they call “Prime Time.” The man who possibly drew more attention to himself than any other athlete ever, but then backed it up on the playing field. The only man to ever score an NFL touchdown and hit a Major League Baseball home run in the same week. That same man was at the Under Armour National All-American Combine recently addressing a group of about 150 high school underclassmen assembled at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg.

I don't know Penn State coach Bill O'Brien. Never been in the same room with him. Never interviewed him. Never talked to him in my life until Thursday. But if I were a high school football player getting ready to sign a college scholarship, I'd want to play for this man. Why wouldn't anybody want to play for a college football coach you can actually trust? In this day and age when vagabond coaches are always seeking out the next great job (see Tommy Tuberville, Todd Graham, etc., etc.)

We've talked a lot in the past about college commitments and how players should stick with their commitment once they've made their choice. It's supposed to be a promise. Nothing, of course, is written in stone, but there was once a time when a person's word was as good as gold. Times have changed. It's difficult to hold a person true to an original choice when circumstances are ever-changing. After seeing more than 100 high school football players from the state of Florida decommit during the 2013 recruiting cycle, members of the 2014 class figured to be more selective.

Florida and Florida State earned significant offseason endorsements. While college coaches are quick to say preseason college football magazines are worthless, a handful have a remarkable history of accurately projecting the rise and fall of programs. The long, hot days of summer openly mock the average college football fan counting down the time until their Saturdays will be filled with games. Those looking for an oasis can pick up the latest batch of college football preview magazines, which are on sale now. Athlon, Lindy's, Phil Steele, USA Today and Sporting News offer a glimpse of what to expect during the 2013 season.

LAKE BUENA VISTA -- They're not going to do this the old way anymore, not going to stick their heads in a pressure cooker and hope that a teen-age savior comes to their aid. Building and sustaining a program is no longer about smooth-talking the best four or five high schoolers that will listen. Eddie Fogler tried that approach, tried to snag two unbelievable talents -- Kevin Garnett and then Jermaine O'Neal -- who would soar South Carolina higher than it has ever been. They both skipped straight to the pros, and Fogler never recovered.

CHICAGO -- The basketball coach wandered into the gym, disoriented, as if it was some kind of strange place. Finally, after minutes of peering and searching, an NBA scout helped Kentucky Coach Tubby Smith. "Yo, Tub, you looking for your kid?" he asked. Smith nodded. The scout then pointed at a stretching Keith Bogans. What a sight it had to be. Smith glanced down and saw perhaps the last component of a national championship team sporting a reversible No. 19 NBA jersey. Bogans was at Moody Bible Institute this past week for the league's final pre-draft NBA camp, the only one college underclassmen can attend.

Perhaps you heard that Phil Mickelson flew home to California to see and hear his daughter Amanda speak at her eighth grade graduation, then flew back to Pennsylvania for the start of the U.S. Open, getting back at about 4 a.m. (Pennsylvania time) and teeing off about three hours later. (We're not here to praise his courage 'cause after all somebody else flew his private jet and he is just playing golf. However, as an aside, he started really well so perhaps Tiger Woods should have gone with him. Bazinga.)

Andres Arroyo, already regarded by many as the best all-around distance runner in Florida high-school history, hopes to add another crowning achievement to his legacy in Saturday's Adidas Golden Stripes Dream Mile in New York City. If he approaches lofty goals of breaking the hallowed four-minute mark and winning against an elite national field, the race will be a fitting encore for an athlete whose dutiful determination have made him a coach's dream. "Andres, and his family, gave me blind faith to make decisions on all aspects of his running throughout high school," Colonial coach Rene Plasencia said.